William Waller

William Waller (1597-19 September 1668) was an English Parliamentarian general during the English Civil War.

Biography
William Waller was born in Knole, Kent, England in 1597, and he served in the Venetian army and in Henry de Vere, 18th Earl of Oxford's expedition to the Palatinate during the Thirty Years' War. He was knighted in 1622, and he was elected MP for Andover in 1640. During the English Civil War, he served as a general of the Parliamentarian army, capturing Portsmouth in September 1642 and capturing Farnham and Winchester later that year. In 1643, he was promoted to Major-General and placed in command of operations in the region of Gloucester and Bristol, but Waller's old friend Ralph Hopton's Cavalier army destroyed his army in the Battle of Roundway Down on 13 July 1643. In 1644, he was defeated by King Charles I of England in the Battle of Cropredy Bridge and the Second Battle of Newbury. In 1644, he resigned from his command due to his Presbyterian faith, which was persecuted by Oliver Cromwell's government. He died in 1668.